St.John’s Hosts Comenius Visitors from Turkey, Iceland, Ireland and Germany
“Any horizontal Irish? Or a vertical German?” Quickly – I need horizontal and vertical Turkeys!” Such was the intriguing conversation during many January lunchtimes in St.John’s. Alongside baking Welsh cakes, burnishing banners and display boards and rehearsing for a special Comenius concert, several pupils from our newly established Comenius Club devoted their spare time to cutting and pasting flags from our partner countries, to put around the edges of all the displays.
“It was like a military operation” says Languages teacher Mrs. Sarll.”We’d have one pupil “doing” 3 Icelandic flags to be stuck vertically, another in charge of “horizontal Turkeys”, another overseeing Ireland and two more producing the Welsh and German flags. I was there, in the midst of it all, pasting like made and shouting out for the required flags. Had any of those nations been passing an open window, they’d have thought we have very strange language classes. The vertical Turley command always got a hearty laugh from all. A very strange image, indeed!”As well as decorating the school with displays from each partner country (Turkey, Wales, Iceland, Ireland, Germany), balloons bearing each country’s colours were blown up (thank you Pre-prep!), Welsh cakes and cawl prepared by the kitchen and two special assemblies arranged . The Pre-prep classes performed a superb rendition of their “Welsh not”play and stole the show when they held up their extremely long banner of Llanfair PG! Each country gave a presentation and pupils from St. John’s also gave their own presentations about some of the partner countries. An educational feast,we learned that Turkey is the only capital city in the world to span two continents, that Iceland has 13 Santa Clauses- and that the Irish really do believe in fairies!
On the Thursday, all visitors attended lessons and enjoyed a typically Welsh lunch in the dining hall. The four Turkish and four German pupils integrated well into their classes and were able to share stories of their different lifestyles and cultures.The German children commented on the length of the St.John’s day, as they are used to going home at lunchtime. They very much enjoyed staying with their host families, whom we would like to thank again for their hospitality and kindness.We would also like to thank those families who hosted the Turkish children on Friday evening for tea. All of the visiting teachers confirmed that this had been a great success and that “Wales had set the bar extremely high” with regard to the visit as a whole. They congratulated everyone for their hard work and dedication to the Comenius project, making us all feel that it had been very worthwhile,
On Thursday evening, the concert was another success. From Pre-Prep to Seniors, our pupils entertained our enraptured guests with plays, songs, individually penned poems on our Comenius theme of Respect and many musical items, both vocal and instrumental. Our second showing of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, in Denglish, with the incomparable, ever-enthusiastic Stefan “Bauer” as host, was welcomed by an appreciative audience and Year 8’s other production, the X factor, was the cause of much merriment, with our very own “Sedward” (Sam Bevan and Edward Rees) taking the much-coveted “crown”. Year 7 also excelled themselves with their lively “Stomp” version of the Comenius rap. Thank you to Mrs. Mead for the inspired interpretation. A big thank you also to Hugh Perkins, in Year 9 for his dedication, expertise and superb work as Senior Sound Engineer. Years 4 to 6 had everyone singing and clapping along to their catchy Respect songs, which all the other countries are keen to try out.
Well done to the three boys in the front row with their cheeky solos! And a huge thank you to all pupils who trod the boards and helped out. You should all feel extremely proud of what you achieved. All of our visitors commented on the professionalism of the production and on the many talents that our pupils in St. John’s have to offer. Father Jonathan gave a very warm, official welcome to all 20 guests and emphasised the benefits to pupils and staff of being involved in such a stimulating, multi-lateral project. He talked of the “rise in intellectual competence” that such a project encourages, as well as “improved European citizenship and greater awareness of one another’s cultures, which will hopefully bring the wider benefits of improved tolerance and respect…. building on St. John’s ethos of creating an environment where its pupils develop virtue, wisdom and humility”. You can read his full address below. After introducing the visiting staff to an “alternative” version of our Welsh culinary traditions (thank you for a lovely Indian meal, Le Raj!) Thursday drew to a highly successful close.
On Friday morning, we were fortunate enough to welcome Mrs. Madeleine Moon, M.P. for Bridgend, to our own “Welsh assembly”! Mrs. Moon welcomed all our guests to St. John’s and Porthcawl and echoed Father Jonathan’s sentiments about this opportunity to learn from one another’s cultures, as well as celebrating our “uniqueness”. As Mrs. Moon had only recently arrived back in Porthcawl from Afghanistan, we felt very privileged and grateful that she was able to pop in and lend further gravitas to an already successful few days. The rest of Friday, for the staff, was spent in a Comenius conference, where plans were made for this term’s project work. Last term, the focus was very much on “Respecting Myself”, so this coming term, we will be developing ideas on the theme of “Respecting My Family”. All ideas are very welcome and discussions will be held in the next Comenius Club. Visiting pupils continued to attend lessons on Friday and some were able to join in with our Games lessons. To round the afternoon off, Mr. Gwyn Petty took the teachers on a mini guided tour of Porthcawl and regaled them all with very interesting tales of Porthcawl harbour. It was much enjoyed by all. A big thank you to Mr. Petty for giving up his time and sharing his extensive knowledge of local history.
Friday evening was spent in the Salthouse, where , after a hectic two days, there was time to unwind and get to know our visiting teachers in a more relaxed atmosphere. After much cajoling, Mrs. Sarll was also persuaded to deliver the valedictory ditty she had scribbled down just before leaving the house. As the project’s website is to be called www.twiiger.com (Turkey, Wales, Ireland, Iceland, Germany Encourage Respect), her poem is entitled “Ta Ta To All Twiigers! See below . Mrs. Sarll gave all visitors a copy of the poem over a farewell drink on the Saturday night – and can assure us that Iceland took the monetary joke in the light-hearted vein it was intended! Mrs. Sarll says: “I would personally like to thank everyone –staff and pupils- who helped with the organisation of this very memorable, one-off visit. I found it quite an emotional experience, seeing all those visitors in our small school for two days and feel that we have all benefitted enormously from their presence. We would like to thank them all for the beautiful gifts they brought and for their continued commitment to Comenius. Turkey, for example, travelled over 2,000 miles to be with us. Thank you to them and to all the partners for their dedication. I am excited about the coming two years and, despite many sleepless nights, midnight e-mails and tiny flags all over my house (I even found one in the cutlery drawer yesterday!), I am delighted that we have embarked on this enriching experience, which will open all our eyes to the wider world, the people who live in it and the need to show respect in all we do”
